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BioWare Is Giving Anthem Players More Loot

Anthem might have quite the checklist of issues to resolve, but it’s clearly giving it the old college try. For one thing, the devs are taking steps to fix the shonky loot system.

Now, as you’ve surely noticed, Anthem did not hit the ground running. It hit the ground like one of those hilarious dog videos on social media, where the Labrador skitters and flails its way down the full length of the icy driveway. Still, it’s a little early to despair. As we stated in our review, the game is still very much salvageable.

What it needs is a dev team that actually cares about improving their games and delivering on their promises (as hard as that can be to find in this industry at times). Support for the game may be totally lackluster just now, but the only way to go is up. Those notorious loading screens have been much improved since the early uproar about them, as has the situation with the relentless teleportation to your teammates in co-op play. These are quite positive signs.

What’s next on the agenda? The devs are actually getting a handle on their own game’s loot system. Salvaging new gear is a central Anthem mechanic, so it’s crucial that a good balance of grinding time spent and loot acquired is reached. Naturally, this being Anthem, things have been all over the place in that regard.

Last weekend, things went haywire. The game’s most recent patch had the unintended effect of dramatically boosting the amount of loot that players were receiving, a situation that was reversed by BioWare soon after the patch’s release. Naturally, the devs were called out on this, as nobody likes being given a shiny new gift (increased drops) and then having it taken away from them again.

Fast forward a week or so, and BioWare seem to have decided that they’ve had more than enough bad publicity to be getting on with. As Eurogamer reports, they’ve promised to revise the loot mechanics to make them more favorable for players.

How so? Well, for starters, Common and Uncommon items will no longer drop for level 30 players, dramatically lowering the chances of picking up redundant gear. As lead producer Ben Irving stated in a Reddit post, the community has been clamoring for this change, and the team has listened.

Elsewhere, the inscriptions system is being altered so that gear-specific ones won’t appear on the "wrong" weapon classes. Masterworks are also becoming easier to craft, with the cost being reduced from 25 masterwork embers to 15.

The gear and loot systems are still rather flawed, but this is a positive move nonetheless. Rome wasn’t built in a day, and a game as incomplete as Anthem won’t be fixed in one. BioWare is taking player feedback on board and making changes, though, and that’s something to take heart from. Onwards to the next patch!